And having thus ventured to express his surprise at this deficiency, he proceeds to note what only indications he observes of any work at all in this field, and the very quarters he goes to for these little accidental hints and beginnings of such a science, show how utterly it was wanting in those grandiloquent schools of philosophic theory, and those magisterial chairs of direction, which the author found in possession of this department in his time.
'A man shall find in the traditions of ASTROLOGY, some pretty and apt divisions of men's natures,'—so in the discussions which occur on this same point in Lear, where this part of philosophy comes under a more particular consideration, and the great ministry which it would yield to morality and policy is suggested in a different form, this same reference to the astrological observations repeatedly occurs. The Poet, indeed, discards the astrological _theory _of these natural differences in the dispositions of men, but is evidently in favour of an observation, and inquiry of some sort, into the second causes of these 'sequent effects,' and an anatomy of the living subject is in one case suggested, by a person who is suffering much from the deficiencies of science in this field, as a means of throwing light on it. 'Then let Regan be anatomised.' For in the Play,—in the poetic impersonation, which has a scientific purpose for its object, the historical extremes of these natural differences are touched, and brought into the most vivid dramatic oppositions; so as to force from the lips of the by-standers the very inquiries and suggestions which are put down here; so as to wring from the broken hearts of men—tortured and broken on the wheel, which 'blind men' call fortune,—tortured and broken on the rack of an unlearned and barbaric human society,—or, from hearts that do not break with anything that such a world can do, the imperious direction of the new science.
'Then let Regan be anatomised, and see what it is that breeds about her heart.' He has asked already, 'What is the cause of thunder?' But 'his philosopher' must not stop there. 'Is there any cause—is there any cause in nature that makes these hard hearts?'—
It is the stars!
The stars above us govern our conditions,
Else one self mate and mate could not beget
Such different issues.
'A man shall find in the traditions of astrology some pretty and apt divisions of men's natures,' ('let them be anatomised,' he, too, says,) 'according to the predominance of the planets;' (this is the 'spherical predominance,' which Edmund does not believe in)—'lovers of quiet, lovers of action, lovers of victory, lovers of honour, lovers of pleasure, lovers of arts, lovers of change, and so forth.' And here, also, is another very singular quarter to go to for a science which is so radical in morality; here is a place, where men have empirically hit upon the fact that it has some relation to policy. 'A man shall find in the wisest sorts of these relations which the Italians make touching conclaves, the natures of the several Cardinals, handsomely and livelily painted forth';—and what he has already said in the general, of this department, he repeats here under this division of it, that the conversation of men in respect to it, is in advance of their books;—'a man shall meet with, in every day's conference, the denominations of sensitive, dry, formal, real, humorous, "huomo di prima impressione, huomo di ultima impressione, and the like": but this is no substitute for science in a matter so radical,'—'and yet, nevertheless, this observation, wandereth in words, but is not fixed in inquiry. For the distinctions are found, many of them, but we conclude no precepts upon them'; it is induction then that we want here, after all—here also—here as elsewhere: 'the distinctions are found, many of them, but we conclude no precepts upon them: wherein our fault is the greater, because both HISTORY, POESY, and DAILY EXPERIENCE, are as goodly fields where these observations grow; whereof we make a few poesies to hold in our hands, but no man bringeth them to the confectionery that receipts might be made of them for the use of life.'
How could he say that, when there was a man then alive, who was doing in all respects, the very thing which he puts down here, as the thing which is to be done, the thing which is of such radical consequence, which is the beginning of the new philosophy, which is the beginning of the new reformation; who is making this very point in that science to which the others are subordinate?—how could he say it, when there was a man then alive, who was ransacking the daily lives of men, and putting all history and poesy under contribution for these very observations, one, too, who was concluding precepts upon them, bringing them to the confectionery, and composing receipts of them for the use of life; a scholar who did not content himself with merely reporting a deficiency so radical as this, in the human life; a man who did not think, apparently, that he had fulfilled his duty to his kind, by composing a paragraph on this subject.
And how comes it—how comes it that he who is the first to discover this so fatal and radical defect in the human science, has himself failed to put upon record any of these so vital observations? How comes it that the one who is at last able to put his finger on the spot where the mischief, where all the boundless mischief, is at work here,—where the cure must begin, should content himself with observations and collections in physical history only? How comes it that the man who finds that all the old philosophy has failed to become operative for the lack of this historical basis, who finds it so 'exceeding strange, so incredible,' who 'cannot sufficiently marvel,' that these observations should have been omitted in this science, heretofore,—the man who is so sharp upon Aristotle and others, on account of this incomprehensible oversight in their ethics,—is himself guilty of this very thing? And how will this defect in his work, compare with that same defect which he is at so much pains to note and describe in the works of others—others who did not know the value of this history? And how can he answer it to his kind, that with the views he has dared to put on record here, of the relation, the essential relation, of this knowledge to human advancement and relief, he himself has done nothing at all to constitute it, except to write this paragraph.
And yet, by his own showing, the discoverer of this field was himself the man to make collections in it; for he tells us that accidental observations are not the kind that are wanted here, and that the truth of direction must precede the severity of observation. Is this so? Whose note book is it then, that has come into our hands, with the rules and plummet of the new science running through it, where all the observation takes, spontaneously, the direction of this new doctrine of nature, and brings home all its collections, in all the lustre of their originality, in all their multiplicity, and variety, and comprehension, in all the novelty and scientific rigour of their exactness, into the channels of these defects of learning? And who was he, who thought there were more things in heaven and earth, than were dreamt of in old philosophies, who kept his tables always by him for open questions? and whose tablets—whose many-leaved tablets, are they then, that are tumbled out upon us here, glowing with 'all saws, all forms, all pressures past, that youth and observation copied there.' And if aphorisms are made out of the pith and heart of sciences, if 'no man can write good aphorisms who is not sound and grounded,' what Wittenberg, what University was he bred in?
Till now there has been no man to claim this new and magnificent collection in natural science: it is a legacy that came to us without a donor;—this new and vast collection in natural history, which is put down here, all along, as that which is wanting—as that which is wanting to the science of man, to the science of his advancement to his place in nature, and to the perfection of his form,—as that which is wanting to the science of the larger wholes, and the art of their conservation. There was no man to claim it, for the boast, the very boast made on behalf of the thing for whom it was claimed—was— he did not know it was worth preserving!—he did not know that this mass of new and profoundly scientific observation—this so new and subtle observation, so artistically digested, with all the precepts concluded on it, strewn, crowded everywhere with those aphorisms, those axioms of practice, that are made out of the pith and heart of sciences—he did not know it was of any value! That is his history. That is the sum of it, and surely it is enough. Who, that is himself at all above the condition of an oyster, will undertake to say, deliberately and upon reflection, that it is not? So long as we have that one fact in our possession, it is absurd, it is simply disgraceful, to complain of any deficiency in this person's biography. There is enough of it and to spare. With that fact in our possession, we ought to have been able to dispense long ago with some, at least, of those details that we have of it. The only fault to be found with the biography of this individual as it stands at present is, that there is too much of it, and the public mind is labouring under a plethora of information.
If that fact be not enough, it is our own fault and not the author's. He was perfectly willing to lie by, till it was. He would not take the trouble to come out for a time that had not studied his philosophy enough to find it, and to put the books of it together.